 My name is Julia Django. I work with the International Livestock Research Institute, that's ILRI, based in Nairobi, Kenya. I work with the team that looks into animal genetics and breeding. Basically, our vision and our goal is to try and use livestock and the practice of animal genetics and breeding to try and help change the livelihoods of livestock keepers in developing countries. One of the developing countries we've had the privilege to work in is Nicaragua, which is in Latin America, a totally different system from what we would generally find in Africa. And Nicaragua is unique. They keep animals both for milk and meat products because they produce both milk and meat for export in American countries, but also some to the United States of America. Nicaragua is a developing country in terms of the livelihoods or the incomes for their farmers are really still low, but livestock does contribute significantly to their national economy. In Nicaragua, we found that there were a lot of livestock keepers that own smaller land sizes, with herd sizes of less than 25 animals. That's between 10 and 25 animals. And these are the livestock keepers that we felt would be important to help target to change their livelihoods. As part of the livestock and fish strategy, the objective was how do we use genetics to help change the way in which the breeds of the animals the farmers are keeping will produce products for their lives. But because we didn't have a lot of information on Nicaragua, we had to begin by trying to understand the environments and the systems that we were working in. Following the baseline, we immediately realized that almost all the smallholder farmers kept a bull. And the other thing was there was not one single breed type that you would say this is the main breed type being kept by the farmers. But they had a variety of crosses, not really purebreds, but crosses. Most of the crosses were crosses to Brahmin, but you had like Brown Swiss crosses, Jersey crosses, Holstein crosses. And that immediately raised a lot of questions as to why and what happened. So following the baseline, we decided let's go back to the communities and talk with them and try and learn from them and see what influences their practices and what would they need to do or what would they try to change if they were asked to change. From experiences elsewhere, the best way to get farmers to give you information is using their animals. So we organized for the group discussion to be held on a farmer's farm. So we requested them to get a farmer who had enough animals of the different variety and to try and see if we could actually at the same time give feedback and have training on the choice and selection of different breed types. What struck us immediately when for the follow up or the feedback workshop is that it's mainly men who attended. Within the whole group, there was only one woman who came. And her peculiarity was she was already an extension worker. So she was an extension worker as well as a livestock keeper. And that was the only thing that made her feel free to come and sit among the men to talk. But otherwise all the other participants were men. But the farmer's wife and his children were available to prepare the meals and cook for the group that came. So they offered that service and they were subsequently facilitated to cook for the group that came for the training. As part of the process of group discussions, we have developed a series of tools that we used and small group work to try. First of all, just share with the farmers what we saw from the baseline, the different breed types. And then we raised questions related to the types of animals they were keeping and the practices that they were using. And in the small subgroups, we got the farmers to define what were the traits of importance. But particularly our interest was the breeding practices adopted to help change their herds and what they knew about them. The farmers noted that, yes, they understood the use of AI because for cattle production, I mean, artificial insemination is known to really cause rapid and drastic changes in the herds over a short time. So they said they do know about the practice, but they don't really use it much. And the question came to why. They said, well, projects do bring up AI and they adopt it, but then after that the AI is not available so they don't use it anymore. And then we asked them, what do they like about the animals that they use? And they chose the traits that they would desire in their animals. Their vision was they wanted animals that could produce about 15 kilos of milk and had good growth rates because the calves that were born to their cows are often sold off to other producers who then raise animals for slaughter. So that way then they have the dual purpose nature of the animals. But one thing that was concerning each one of us was the promotion also of different breed types within the farmer herds. In the process of having the group work, we decided, let's have a practical demonstration. So we requested the farmers to go and actually look at the animals that the farmer kept and we separated them into groups and told them to identify the two best in terms of the traits that they felt were of interest to them as livestock breeders. And it was very interesting because when the farmers selected their cows physically, at the end of the day when we asked them why they selected their cows and then we brought up what they had listed in their discussion, it turned out that they were kind of two different lines along which they were selecting because they selected the live animals based on the color and the physical appearance externally of the animals without looking at the other characteristics, without looking at did the animal have any records or information on them, without looking at any historical background on the animals. And yet during the group discussions these are the things that they had said would guide their choices of which animals they would use. Now of course then that for us served as a learning point and a point where you could help guide the farmers in terms of these are the principles you look at in breeding. So following the discussions we would go back to plenary sessions but because the whole morning and these activities had been quite busy, we took a break and decided let's have some refreshment and some lunch. As facilitators we were given good treatment and were asked please come and sit in a separate room and so we went and sat in a separate room and what surprised us was as the women served us they said they had a question to ask and so we said yeah go ahead and their question was you know this AI that you talk about when you use it how long do you have to wait you know when you see a cow wanting to be mounted how long do you have to wait before it has to be served if you really want to get that calf and so we asked that's an interesting question have you tried to use the AI and she says yes we've tried but we never get a calf so we no longer use it because every time we try to use it we don't get a calf and so we asked what's the process when you try to use the AI she says oh when I see the animal in heat then I tell my husband but normally he waits until the following morning and then he sends for the AI technician and we laughed and oh by then it is too late because the animal has probably cycled and lost the cycle she says yes in fact normally I then push it beside the bull or near the neighbour's bull and I'll get the calf that I need but the next question was where can I get information on what to do so immediately we noticed that though the women were not present at the workshop it didn't mean that the women were not curious to know or learn about the breeding or the use of the different technologies but it also didn't mean that the women didn't want to use them it's just they didn't have the knowledge required so we requested our partners on the ground do you think we could try and have a workshop where you just target or bring the women together and try and find them and this was possible and it was arranged and when the women were asked what training do you think we should try and organise for you the immediate reaction was train us on how to manage reproduction and use AI if we can use AI effectively then we don't have to keep these bulls and maybe we could change our herds